Yunghi Grant

YUNGHI GRANT IS HELD IN NOVEMBER:

Happy Holidays!

In this season of Thanksgiving, The Yunghi Grant gifts $10,000 USD to members of the Facebook group Photojournalists Cooperative in recognition of the values and principles all of us hold as essential to our creative and productive well being. This grant will select 5 photographers and each grantee will receive a $2,000 USD grant. I am doing this to emphasize the importance of copyright registration of your work with the Library of Congress and as a way for me to give back to the profession of photojournalism, an industry that I care for and am proud to be a member of for more than 34 years.

Every penny recovered from the unauthorized use of my work is put towards this grant and I want to share it with my fellow photographers in the Photojournalists Cooperative to emphasize that, YES it makes a difference if you copyright register your work and everyone should make a practice of it in your workflow. Think of it as digital teeth brushing.

As you know image theft is rampant and registration is the first step toward protecting our work; it gives photographers better legal options when the work is registered. By doing so, you are also helping to map out paid image use on the Internet and protecting our industry for the next artist.

In a very real sense, registration acts as a deterrent to stop an infringer. Attorneys take you very seriously as it exposes an infringer up to $150,000 per infringement statutory damages and can allow to collect legal fees as well. I see it as a matter of survival for the creative industry.

Open to US and international freelance photographers who are member of Facebook group Photojournalists Cooperative. In unique circumstance, a photographer outside of the Photojournalists Cooperative may be awarded.